Exactly, you can't have an ever-changing world (MMO) and expect people to pop in and out freely like nothing ever happened. It doesn't work like that and even more so because of how often content is created and altered in GW2.

Since introducing VP, people will feel left behind if they leave and come back.

Unless of course the VP is fast ... and after the person comes back, they can be caught up in an extremely short period of time. This, though, means you cannot use a gating mechanism, and you cannot require grinding in your VP because those are meant to slow you down.

Everquest was terrible for this. If I played 1 night less than friends, I'd fall behind enough where I couldn't catch them before they did their next raid. That meant I was now a raid behind, and if that raid had something required to get into the next raid planned, you fell behind further and were effectively off the roster.

It was either "work your game like a job" or "you might as well not play."

And if they stooped to helping me catch up? Well, we'd miss this week's raid ... and potentially, by the time we could go again, I'd have fallen behind again.

Unless of course the VP is fast ... and after the person comes back, they can be caught up in an extremely short period of time. This, though, means you cannot use a gating mechanism, and you cannot require grinding in your VP because those are meant to slow you down.

Everquest was terrible for this. If I played 1 night less than friends, I'd fall behind enough where I couldn't catch them before they did their next raid. That meant I was now a raid behind, and if that raid had something required to get into the next raid planned, you fell behind further and were effectively off the roster.

It was either "work your game like a job" or "you might as well not play."

And if they stooped to helping me catch up? Well, we'd miss this week's raid ... and potentially, by the time we could go again, I'd have fallen behind again.

Considering how awful the gating is (LFG FOTM 1) ... it'll be a slow progression.

There's already issues getting dungeon groups on some servers.

It's okay to enjoy crap if you're willing to admit it's crap.Every patch is like ArenaNet walking out onto the stage of the International Don't Kitten Up Championship, and then proceeding to shiv itself in the stomach 30 times while screaming "IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD! IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!"

Exactly, you can't have an ever-changing world (MMO) and expect people to pop in and out freely like nothing ever happened. It doesn't work like that and even more so because of how often content is created and altered in GW2.

Not to mention that Zero was operating on a fallacy: That fallacy being that the person is equally as capable when they left as when they return. If a person left pre-Ascended, they return to find that their exotics are useless and need to be replaced. Perhaps six months down the road, three or five more gear sets will have been introduced. And suddenly they're that much more behind.

This leads to skipping people through earlier content just so that they can catch up. Older content just becomes redundant, then streamlined. Sort of like that Warcraft game that apparently no one's ever experienced and thus knows nothing about.

When a person leaves GW2 for over a month, coming back to changes and being behind is annoying. If they were not satisfied with the game to begin with, they will leave again.

To be fair, the downscaling makes it such that "being behind" doesn't count for most of the content in the game. If they were to add more <80 dungeons then armor increases above 80 have diminished bearing on the lower end content. Moreover, as it stands right now, being geared in exotics is being exceptionally geared and no content is being blocked aside from the self-perpetuating fractals and, arguably, some minuscule WvW ramping.

Not to mention that this more recent patch made "gearing out" rather... easy/fast (even if still fractals limited). The backslot is still expensive in terms of mats but the rings became not only a possible RNG gift but something you get after 10 days if all you do is 10+ once a day for 10 days (which, given simple probability, will end up with you having far more than just one ring). Given the snails rate at which these items are being introduced... most people can find the time to run a daily once every few days to get everything before any new stuff is released.

So were many other aspects of the game that clearly didn't work so well...still people take Anet's word on things...
just saying.

Yes, it was a selling point(in terms of marketing, not literal meaning of things) to an extent but the game was never built up that way. Even early game, BWEs were designed in such a way that if your not there then you are just assed out. Events and everything were always be there or you are missing out.

They don't literally want people leaving the game because they won't make any money. They told us pretty much it's ok to leave and come back as a hoax, they wanted you to feel like GW2 is home and stay. It's more like "yea you can leave but you'll be missing out on the action". It would be a joke for anyone to believe Anet thought it was ok for you to up and quit the game..of course they don't want that to happen.

It's just a case of telling people what they want to hear out of customer coutsey, you aren't meant to take it 100% literal. Like when someone tells you "call anytime" they don't literally mean anytime.

To be fair, the downscaling makes it such that "being behind" doesn't count for most of the content in the game. If they were to add more <80 dungeons then armor increases above 80 have diminished bearing on the lower end content. Moreover, as it stands right now, being geared in exotics is being exceptionally geared and no content is being blocked aside from the self-perpetuating fractals and, arguably, some minuscule WvW ramping.

Not to mention that this more recent patch made "gearing out" rather... easy/fast (even if still fractals limited). The backslot is still expensive in terms of mats but the rings became not only a possible RNG gift but something you get after 10 days if all you do is 10+ once a day for 10 days (which, given simple probability, will end up with you having far more than just one ring). Given the snails rate at which these items are being introduced... most people can find the time to run a daily once every few days to get everything before any new stuff is released.

You don't get "left behind" because of levels. You get left behind because people leave content. For example, the huge crash in the number of people doing story missions for the dungeons. Finding groups for those can range from tedious to next to impossible depending on the specific dungeon now that the initial wave of people is over. Fractals only made that worse, and also decreased the number of EM dungeon runs.

As the game expands, people coming back get left behind because there is content that they have not done that is a pain to try to do. Then if you leave at 40 or something, leveling alone strait sucks and the zones are next to empty in some places. Players get left behind as the playerbase migrates.

Little Mabel won't be able to be here it's our worst fear. She's busy working on her garden that she's growing up in space.

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You don't get "left behind" because of levels. You get left behind because people leave content. For example, the huge crash in the number of people doing story missions for the dungeons. Finding groups for those can range from tedious to next to impossible depending on the specific dungeon now that the initial wave of people is over. Fractals only made that worse, and also decreased the number of EM dungeon runs.

That I understand, but Story Mode was always sort of a dead end and poor choice because of the nature of it: unrewarding, long, and story driven. Most people would ever only want to do it once or twice just by its design.

Feathermoore, on 15 December 2012 - 04:13 PM, said:

As the game expands, people coming back get left behind because there is content that they have not done that is a pain to try to do. Then if you leave at 40 or something, leveling alone strait sucks and the zones are next to empty in some places. Players get left behind as the playerbase migrates.

This is always going to happen though, people always migrate.

My whole point was that the downscaling makes it such that gearing out can be avoided by using the system if they add new content to lower zones.

That I understand, but Story Mode was always sort of a dead end and poor choice because of the nature of it: unrewarding, long, and story driven. Most people would ever only want to do it once or twice just by its design.

This is always going to happen though, people always migrate.

My whole point was that the downscaling makes it such that gearing out can be avoided by using the system if they add new content to lower zones.

And my point has nothing to do with gearing out and everything to do with players being unable to complete old content and therfor not coming back.

Little Mabel won't be able to be here it's our worst fear. She's busy working on her garden that she's growing up in space.

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And my point has nothing to do with gearing out and everything to do with players being unable to complete old content and therfor not coming back.

Then I misunderstood, but so long as they keep old content rewarding (see the current scheme between dungeons vs. fractals where the former is far more money than the latter, but the latter has the shiny loots and skins) the problem should be slow. Irregardless, though, this is an issue that cannot be avoided. The vets will always move on the newer things, and new players will always be "behind" on the content.

That's not really a gaming issue as it is purely how people operate; of course poor decisions like the overly linear, long, tedious nature of the story modes that require full teams is an issue and thorn. The story instances should really be changed to solo encounters much like all the rest of the story and if you want to bring friends, the story scales.

That's not really a gaming issue as it is purely how people operate; of course poor decisions like the overly linear, long, tedious nature of the story modes that require full teams is an issue and thorn. The story instances should really be changed to solo encounters much like all the rest of the story and if you want to bring friends, the story scales.

That is an awesome idea. I would actually do them if they could be solo'd. So far I have done AC and arah...won't be doing any others.